Central and Western Railway officials hail railway budget

Mumbai, Feb 25: Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) officials today lauded the "commuter-friendly" provisions made in the Railway Budget and said it would bring about a positive change in the functioning of the railway.

"The Budget ensures that projects are completed in a time-bound manner. The provisions announced would bring a drastic change not only in the functioning of the Railway but would also ease the hardships faced by commuters," R D Tripathi, additional general manager of CR said.

"We have got sufficient budgetary allocations that would pave the way for execution of projects," Tripathi said. He said the new government lays emphasis on execution of projects, whereas the previous governments just focussed on announcing new projects.

"The proposed elevated Churchgate-Virar corridor and CST-Panvel corridor would help in decongesting the highly stressed services, especially during the peak hours," he added.

Elaborating on CR's future plan, Tripathi said their thrust would be on conversion of nine-car rakes into to 12-car rakes and the augmentation of such 12-car rakes will increase the passenger carrying capacity by 33 per cent, that in turn will help reduce accidents due to falling from the running train."

Addressing a press conference, G C Agrawal, General Manager of WR, said, "Although all the projects are important for us, the Churchgate-Virar elevated corridor is the most crucial and significant development in today's budget."

"We have got sufficient budgetary allocation for construction of FOBs and boundary walls, coverage of more stations under the Integrated Security System (ISS).

"Arrival of AC local rakes by the end of next month and raising the heights of the platforms between Virar and Dahanu Road stations are major developments that would provide comfort and safety to our commuters."

PTI